Mount for driving centrifugal machines



E. ROBERTS MOUNT FOR DRIVING CENTRIFUGAL MACHINES Filed Sept. 19, 1919 Patented Feb. 24, 1925.

UNITED STATES 1,527,380 PATENT OFFICE.

EUGENE ROBERTS, OF SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, ASSIGNOR TO THE WESTERN STATES MACHINE COMIANY, OF SALT LAKE CITY, UTAI-I, A CORPORATION OF UTAH.

MOUNT FOR DRIVING CENTRIFUGAL MACHINES.

Application filed September 19, 1919. Serial No. 324,928.

.To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EUGENE Romans, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Salt Lake City, in the county of Salt Lake and State of Utah, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Mount for Driving Centrifugal Machines, of which the following is a'specification.

This invention relates to the mounting and driving of centrifugal machines and is intended to provide a simple and efficient construction by which a centrifugal of the suspended gyratory type may be driven by direct connections leading to the line shaft or other driving means while permitting the requisite degree of oscillation or gymtion when the centrifugal is rotating.

Generally speaking the invention consists in the combination of a gyratory basket shaft suspended at its upper end on a uni versal joint with an overhead axially aligned non-oscillatory driving shaft which carries centrifugally operating clutch blocks arranged to form a frictional driving engagement With an annular member secured to the basket shaft preferably at approximately the level of the center of oscillation of the basket shaft, and means operable at will to force the centrifugally actuated blocks out of frictional engagement with said annular member while the machine is rotating.

This and other features of the invention will be more particularly described 'in the following specification and will be defined in the claims hereto annexed.

In the accompanying drawings I. have illustrated a preferred form embodying the principles of this invention in which Figure 1 is an assembled View showing chiefly in sectional elevation the arrangement of the driving shaft, the centrifugal basket shaft and the intermittent controllable driving connection by which the basket shaft is driven without interfering with its proper oscillation.

Figure 2 is a detail showing a of the spider and pivotal arms the clutch blocks are controlled.

Figure 3 is a detail showing a side e1evation at one of the clutchblock arms and its connection with the clutch block.

In order to secure good results in practice it is important to have a driving mechanism that will act eflectively to quickly bring the plan view y which machine up to normal speed of operation and which shall be so arranged with reference to the oscillatory basket shaft as not In the practice of the invention according to the form illustrated the centrifugal and its driving mount are preferably secured to the upper and lower I-beams a running along the side of the mixer. On the lower I-beam is mounted an inverted hanger a inside of which are placed suitable annular elastic buffers or rings a? between which is located the annular flange b of the oscillatory bearing head 6, which flange has a peripheral contact with the inside wall of the hanger to prevent later-a1 shifting. The convex curvature of the outer surface ofthe flange permits. oscillation of the bearing or suspension head and this peripheral curvature is concentric to the center of oscillation. A compression ring a is mounted above the upper buffer. and pressure is applied by means of the hollow nut a which has a screw thread engagement with the upper end of the hanger to secure the requisite compression of the buffer rings.

The oscillatory bearing head held between these two compressible buffers is not only permitted to. have a gyratory movement on a universal joint as it were, but the buffers themselves act to afford a yielding resistance to said gyratory movement.

Inside the bearing head are provided upper and lower anti-friction bearings of suitable type, in this case the roller type of bearing being used, as shown at 0 to afford an elongated rotary bearing support for the gyratory basket shaft d which carries the basket al at its lower end in the usual manner. Lubrication is provided by means of a stationary oil duct or pipe. d whose lower end acts as a scoop to receive the oil inside the oil cup 12 secured to the shaft 0?, the upper end of said duct discharging inside the bearing head abovethe upper hearing. It will be understood that the head I) has a gyratory or oscillatory movement about an axial center level with the flange 6' intermediate of its ends but' does not rotate.

To the upper end of the basket shaft 01 bearings 'm' m carried by the bracket m Which is secured to the upper I-beam a. This driving shaft 0 may be driven by any suitable application of power, but in this case it is driven by a bevelled gear connection 0' leading from the horizontal line shaft 1" which line shaft is carried in suitable bearings in the bracket m. a

To the lower end of the driving shaft 0 which is axially aligned with the central axis of the basketvshaft is a dome-like spider 8 provided with pairs of lugs or ears 8 on opposite sides of the center which carry horizontal pivot bolts 8 on which are mounted pivoted arms or levers s Levers s are provided at their lower ends with ball extensions 8 which are seated loosely in 'interior sockets formed in segmental clutch blocks s" whose outer and .inner faces are curved to lie inside the annular trough of the drive-transmission pulley a so as to leave a substantial clearance between the opposed inside faces of said trough when the clutch blocks are in neutral position.

To prevent the endwise tilting of the clutch blocks 8, a spring 3 (Figure 3) is secured to the lever arm 8 in position to resist such tiltingby pressing upon the clutch block on opposite sides of the center.

The upper ends of the levers s are curved inwardly to form an engagement with the sliding cone sleeve t which is loosely mounted on the driving shaft 0 intermediate of its ends. The levers 8 preferably have contact rollers s to form this engagement with the cone sleeve. The lower end of the cone sleeve is tapered or conical so that when the sleeve is raised it will not interfere with the inward movement of the upper ends of the levers s and will, therefore, permit the clutch blocks mounted on the lower ends of said levers to spring outwardly until they form a strong frictional engagement with the inside wall of the flange c of the pulley. The friction blocks 8 are preferably provided with some friction lining material 8 on their outer faces to increase the gripping friction against the pulley.

When the cone sleeve 25 is depressed to its lowermost position its lower conical ,face acts to expand or force apart the upper ends of the levers and thus to retract the clutch blocks from frictional engagement with the pulley acting against centrifugal force.

Any suitable shifting means may be employed to shift the cone sleeve from operative to inoperative position. In this case 1 employ a sector arm a which is moved up and down by engagement with the worm u on the shaft 11 which carries an operating hand wheel a and is mounted in a supporting bracket u. The sector arm is connected with an annular yoke 15 having an interior groove fitting over projections 23 which are preferably provided with anti-friction rollers i A brake band 20 may be located around the outside of the pulley for the purpose of more quickly stopping the rotation of the machine after the friction blocks have been disengaged from their frictional driving connection with the pulley.

It will be observed that the plane of engagement between the centrifugal friction blocks 8 and the driving pulley e is practicallyon a level with the center of oscil- .lation of the bearing head and the basket shaft where the sidewise motion of the pulley is inappreciable and where no lateral pressure will be exerted against the rotary bearings which support the basket shaft.

It will be observed that with the above described arrangement all parts of the driv ing connection are rendered very conveniently accessible to the attendant, that there is no interference with the oscillation of the basket shaft by the driving connection, and particularly that the driving connection is not only very direct but is controllable as to starting and stopping.

It will also be understood that while I have shown a driving connection with the line shaft I do not confine myself to such driving means in the application of this invention.

lVhat I claim is:

1. In a centrifugal machine, the combination of a hollow gyratory non-rotating suspension head mounted in a fixed hanger to gyrate about a center intermediate of its ends against a yielding centralizing buffer, a rotary basket shaft extending through said head and rotatably suspended against axial lifting movement in said head, anti-friction radial bearings located at the upper and at the lower ends of said head to rota-tively sustain the radial thrust of the basket shaft both above and below the center of gyration, and a driving member secured to said rotary shaft and surrounding the suspension head at the level of the center of gyration whereby the driving power is applied intermediate of said radialbearings at the lane of the center of gyration, and the li ting of the shaft in relation to said head is prevented, substantially as described.

2. In a centrifugal machine, the combination of a hollow gyratory non-rotating suspension head mounted in a fixed hanger to gyrate about a center intermediate of its ends against a yielding centralizing buffer. a suspended rotary basket shaft extending up through said suspension head, anti-fricsustain the radial thrust of the basket shaft both above and below the center of gyration,

one of said bearings also acting to sustaln the vertical thrust of the'basket shaft, and

' coacting driving clutch elements for rotatcal ing said shaft arranged around the outside of said head and having operative engagement at the level of the center of gyration of the centrifugal, substantially as described.

3. In a mount for driving centrifugal machines the combination of a suspended gyratory shaft, an oscillatory bearing head pro-- vided with upper and lower anti-friction bearings for rotatably engaging and supporting said shaftsaid bearings being located respectively on opposite sides of the center of oscillation, afriction pulley secured to the upper end of said shaft, driving mechanism embracing a non-oscillatory ver-. tically aligned driving shaft, pivotal arms supported thereby and friction blocks loosely'carried by said arms to engage said driving pulley in a horizontal plane intermediate of said upper and lower bearings under the action of centrifugal force, and means for forcing said friction blocks out of engagement with said pulley, substantially as described.

4. The combination of a gyratory centrifugal shaft suspended at its upper end on a universal joint sup-port, a driving pulle secured to the upper end of said shaft an extending downwardly below the center of gyration and having an outwardly and upwardly turned flange to form an annular trough portion, an overhead co-axial driving shaft, pivotal arms carried by said driving shaft to rotate therewith, friction blocks loosely connected to the lower ends of said arms and suspended thereby in said annular trough to move outward into frictional engagement with said annular flange under the action of centrifugal force. and means engaging the upper ends of said levers to force them' outwardly in order to retract the friction blocks from contact with said pulley, substantially as described. J

5. In a driving mount for centrifugal ma chines, the combination of a rotary basket shaft suspended by a universal joint to gyrate about a fixed center of oscillation above specification.

against yielding resistance, a friction-drive transmission pulley secured to the upper end of said shaft with its friction-drive surface lying in substantially the horizontal plane of said center of oscillation, an overheadaxially aligned driving shaft having a spider secured to its lower end, a plurality of frictionclutch blocks movably supported by said spider in the horizontal plane of said center of oscillation to engage the friction surface of said transmission pulley, and means controlled at will for withdrawing and holding said clutch blocks out of driving engagement with said pulley while the machine is rotating, substantially as described.

6. In a driving mount for centrifugal machines, the combination of a rotary gyratory basket shaft suspended to swing about a fixed center of oscillation, a hollow oscillatory suspension head having upper and lower bearings on opposite sides of the 1 .center of oscillation affording rotary support for said basket shaft, a hollow fixed hanger therefor having a supporting flange below said center of oscillation, a drivetransmission pulley secured to the upper end of said basket shaft and extending down outside said hanger with an annular clutch surface located outside said hanger, and a driving clutch suspended from an overhead shaft with its clutch members opposed to said pulley clutch surface, substantially as described.

7 In a driving mount for centrifugal machines, the combination of a fixed hollow hanger, an oscillatory suspension head mounted therein and having a peripheral centralizing flange engaged with the interior of the hanger to prevent lateral shifting of said suspension head, said suspension head. being supported to oscillate against yielding resistance, a rotary basket shaft mounted to rotate in and gyrate with said suspension head, a. clutch pulley secured to the upper end of said shaft and a rotary clutch having centrifugal clutch members disposed op-* posite the clutch surface of said clutch pul ley in substantially theplane of the peripheral centralizing flange of the suspension head, substantially as described.

In witness whereof, I have subscribed the EUGENE ROBERTS. 

